As if I didn’t have enough to do … on organizing JavaScript in Philadelphia

I’ve quietly assumed a leadership role in a new JavaScript meetup in Philadelphia, the Philly JavaScript Developers. Let me tell you a little bit about why I’m working on this, and what I envision it to be.

Why, you’re right! PhillyJS (that group) and PhillyJSDev (the new group) will be friends, and I’m so happy that we have such a vibrant community that we can easily support two meetup groups. PhillyJSDev will meet more often and have more informal meetings, hopefully having a very broad reach in Philadelphia. Both groups will have separate events, and we have faith in the smartness of people to attend what they’re interested in and get involved.

What will it be?

Philly JS Developers will be a place where all JavaScript users can come and learn something, and I have a particular agenda to give love to all sorts of JS application developers, including Backbone, Node, Angular, Ember, Sencha, and the 100000 other ways you might choose to write JavaScript (and mumble mumble coffeescript and compiled JS languages). And of course, I have a bend on getting new people into the community, so expect to see content covering multiple levels, from beginner to WTF.

So, you’re doing a JavaScript group. Cool. What will you do?

Well, we asked our members to find out. At the first meetup (with 40+ attendees), we talked about what we wanted to do with the meetup. Here are some highlights:

Traditional long-form “problem solved” and “new technology” talks. These meetings will happen on the odd months (so next one is in May)

On the even months (such as April) we have lightning talks + project night

The two needs that every meetup hunts for are universal: space and speakers. If you’ve been working on something, learned something, wrote a library, found a library, broke a library … I want to recruit you to speak. You can comment on here and I’ll get in touch, or send me an email if you’ve got mine, or @ me on twitter. As for space, if your office or otherwise free and JavaScript-loving space would like to host us, get in touch as well. I have a suspicion that we’ll get bigger, so space for 40-50+ would be amazing (but if you have smaller space, let me know anyway! We might do smaller events in the future, ex. book club, etc.).

And of course, if you have a company that would like to throw money at us, we will greatly appreciate it. Meetups are not cheap to run, and I’d especially love to generate some funds to pay for regional speakers to come visit. If that kind of event just got you really excited, again, email me, and I’ll make everything happen.